Rebel with a Cause

Abstract

albert camus opens his foundational essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, with a challenging and now-famous dictum: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”1 Almost twenty years after the publication of these words, the author died in a car accident, a death that resulted not from any nihilistic purpose of his own hand but from a fateful combination of uncertain road conditions and questionable automotive circumstances. As the above quotation suggests, death was a thematic cornerstone of Camus’s writings, and he spent most of his literary life articulating a moral philosophy surrounding this inevitability. Indeed, his writings, as well as his life, have gained meaning largely within the context of his death.

Keywords

Political Moderation American Readership French Writer Moral Absolutism Democratic Center

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For a fascinating study on the cultural appropriation of Orwell, see John Rodden, The Politics of Literary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of “St. George” Orwell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

Bernard Murchland, “Sartre and Camus: The Anatomy of a Quarrel,” in Choice of Action: The French Existentialists on the Political Front Line, trans. Michel-Antoine Burnier (New York: Random House, 1968), 175–194;Google Scholar

and Donald Lazere, “American Criticism of the Sartre-Camus Debate: A Chapter in the Cold War,” in Arthur Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1981). Brée’s is perhaps the most extensive study of the intellectual and political differences behind Camus and Sartre. Lazere’s, on the other hand, is the most revealing account of the Cold Warriors’ use of the debate.Google Scholar

Emmett Parker clearly illustrates that “Neither Victim nor Executioner,” not The Rebel, was the first of Camus’s works to draw serious ideological reaction. See Emmett Parker, Albert Camus: The Artist in the Arena (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965).Google Scholar